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Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm here with my man, Adam Kinzinger, former congressman from Texas, head of one country. Everybody say hi to Adam Kinzinger.

Speaker 2 Now, Tim, I live in Texas now, but I'm a congressman from Illinois.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's true. You said I was a congressman from Texas.
I know. I would have already beat Ted Cruz by now if that was the case.

Speaker 2 I've already given away my last topic of this podcast.

Speaker 2 But we need to start with somebody that you know a little bit. I don't know if anybody's seen the news here.
If you discuss just been hanging out, it's Texas.

Speaker 2 But Liz Cheney has said that she's voting for Kamala Harris.

Speaker 2 She said something interesting in her endorsement.

Speaker 2 I don't believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates' names, particularly in swing states.

Speaker 2 Why don't you talk about that a little bit? Because some of our friends disagree with that. They love to write in.
Ronnie Reagan's ghost. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing. So, first off, obviously not a big surprise she did, but I'm glad she did.
And I think the timing is great. Obviously, it would have been great had she been at the convention, but

Speaker 2 you're thrilled that she wasn't there.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 great timing, Liz. Perfect timing.
Nice. Nice.
No, but I think in terms of the writing in, she's right. Now, here's what I will say to people that just say, I can't vote for Kamala.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's the abortion issue or something. It's like, okay.

Speaker 2 If you literally can't get there, there's no problem in my mind if you can't get there of skipping the ballot line or writing somebody in. At least don't vote for Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 Because part of that, I fear that some of these folks are going to be like, well, I have to pick one. This issue is so important to me, so I guess I'll vote for Trump.
We don't want that, obviously.

Speaker 2 But if you can stomach things you disagree with, which by the way, I'm married. My wife and I have things we disagree with, right? A lot, actually.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about that.

Speaker 2 Top three. Top three disagreements.
Yeah. What is it? Money? It's not.

Speaker 2 But like.

Speaker 2 You've got to take a pick, especially if you're a leader.

Speaker 2 If you're somebody that people are looking up to as a thought leader and opinion leader and you took the stand somebody like Liz Cheney did, you've got to take a pick.

Speaker 2 Look, it's going to be Donald Trump or it's going to be Kamala Harris. And he is a real, credible, existential threat to our country.
She isn't. So it's a pretty easy decision in my mind.
It is.

Speaker 2 There was one other part of her remarks that was not part of that vital video that Bill Crystal put in the newsletter this morning I liked.

Speaker 2 She writes, I understand the desire to think that you're casting a vote for conservative policies. But first of all, you're not.
He's not a conservative.

Speaker 2 And I think that that's like critical that she is out there making that case.

Speaker 2 So this is like one of my biggest pet peeves is this idea that Donald Trump is conservative. Now, I will say he inherited most of the conservative movement, but he himself isn't.
I mean, be clear.

Speaker 2 He's a nationalist.

Speaker 2 I don't even know what he is. I don't even think he knows what he is.
He's all about Donald Trump. Conservatism is about conserving things.

Speaker 2 It's about kind of drawing back when you feel things have gone too far.

Speaker 2 He has basically the opposite of that when it comes to constitutional issues, when it comes to spending, when it comes to our military policy to say, you know, we're going to kind of conserve America's role in the world.

Speaker 2 No, you're abdicating that role in the world. And so there is nothing conservative about Donald Trump.
And by the way, Tim,

Speaker 2 I use the example of like, if you're in a trench, okay, and you're fighting, like they're obviously fighting hard in Ukraine, another big, one of the most existential issues facing our world today is whether or not Ukraine can win.

Speaker 2 But if you have an an enemy that's five meters away from you or one that's 50 meters away from you, and you and I are defending ourselves in this trench, we are paying no attention to that 50-meter enemy.

Speaker 2 And let's call that political differences, right? If we didn't have this person right here, then we could focus all we wanted on those kinds of things. This is the threat to us.

Speaker 2 And that threat is: does my kid, does Christian Kinzinger get the privilege of being raised in a democracy as strong or stronger than I? Because right now he's not on that track to get that.

Speaker 2 Because you work on that analogy on like kind of RuPaul's drag race for the next time we're together, out of the trench analogy.

Speaker 2 I think I get where you're going with. I'm all in war.
That's what I got. I've never been in the trench.

Speaker 2 Speaking of Trump not being conservative, I don't know, did you catch any of his

Speaker 2 event at the New York Economic Forum today? A smidge. It was really something.
I'm going to do a reading for you.

Speaker 2 He was asked,

Speaker 2 the question was asked of him how we should address the problem that people are struggling to afford child care.

Speaker 2 Are there any specific policies that he'd put forth to help people who are struggling with child care? Here was his answer. I'm not going to do a voice.
I don't do voices.

Speaker 2 When you talk about the kind of numbers that I talk about, that because child care is child care, it's something you have to have in this country. You have to have it.

Speaker 2 When you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels they are not used to, but they'll get used to very quickly, and it's going to stop them from doing business with us, but they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.

Speaker 2 Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we are talking about, including childcare, that it's going to take care of.

Speaker 2 I fully agree with what he said there.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, this is like, if you'd have read that and said, hey, Kamala Harris said this, this would be the front page of every newspaper.

Speaker 2 And I know on the podcast, we talk a lot about the double standard, but this is an example that this guy is not just a threat to democracy, he's a threat to actually competent governance because he has no idea what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 He doesn't know the issues and doesn't care. Honestly, he doesn't care.
You think he cares about the cost of child care?

Speaker 2 I would put all of my money on the fact that he doesn't think an ounce about that at any point in any day. That's true.

Speaker 2 I wanted to focus on the incoherent part of the answer. When I was reading the transcript, it goes on.

Speaker 2 It goes on for much longer, as is his want.

Speaker 2 Very long, not clear sentences.

Speaker 2 But in the end,

Speaker 2 as a professional Trump translator, I'll let you know what he's trying to do.

Speaker 2 His message to the New York Economic Forum and the image, I have to tell you guys, it's like Trump up there and he's darkened his skin even past burnt sienna now. It's like a pine tar.

Speaker 2 It's like a pine tar skin Trump and like six like PhD academics sitting there asking about this stuff.

Speaker 2 And it's just like he looks like a literal clown.

Speaker 2 This scene is so absurd. Anyway, but what he was trying to say

Speaker 2 if I could if I could sane wash him, was

Speaker 2 that he wanted to tariff, he's going to tariff and tax foreign countries so harshly that we'll get so much money from the tariffs that that will pay for the free child care that will solve the child care cost problem for America.

Speaker 2 So, as a conservative that has strong views on fiscal conservative and economy,

Speaker 2 what do you think? What do you think, like, kind of the Wall Street Journal Edboard view is of we're going to tariff people so hard that we're going to get free child care for everybody?

Speaker 2 Does that sound like a kind of Reagan Thatcherite

Speaker 2 CDO? I'm going to go on a limb and say it doesn't sound that way. I mean, look, we don't have to bore everybody because we all know economics in here, and you know that if a project is...

Speaker 2 I've got a couple of my buddies here from college. Okay, well, most of us know it.

Speaker 2 You know, if you send, obviously, if you tax something coming in, and I think there's times where tariffs can work, especially against unfair trade practices, but that's the purpose of them, to kind of level the playing field.

Speaker 2 But obviously, that... that is just passed on to a consumer.
Here's an interesting thing, if I can take a quick aside, not bore you.

Speaker 2 When we were doing the tax reform bill back in 18 or 17, whenever that was, they wanted, Paul Ryan wanted to do something which I think was actually good called a border adjustment tax.

Speaker 2 And to make it really quick, it's basically in Europe, let's say they make a beer, they put a VAT tax on it, except when they export it, they strip the VAT tax and send it here and so it competes unfairly.

Speaker 2 And what this part of the bill would have done was to basically re-add that adjustment so that it competes fairly. And it's actually, was it like a trillion dollars of income over 10 years?

Speaker 2 It's good for like Shiner Bach. Yeah, yeah, it would be great for Shiner.
Shiner's great. As a new Texan, you guys did, you did good there.
Got it.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Yes.
Yay, Shiner. And so,

Speaker 2 but that was tanked not by, that was tanked by the very people that are hard, by the Southern Republicans, the very people that are hardcore with Trump now, that all of a sudden forget they tanked a very, I think, beneficial at that time, border adjustment bill because, you know, because for whatever reason.

Speaker 2 And they've thrown that out.

Speaker 2 What drives me crazy is like we all have to, when you're in elected office, you have to adjust sometimes how you vote or what you're gonna, you know, there's politics that come into play.

Speaker 2 But what you can't violate is core principles. Unless you have a real come to Jesus moment on something, your core principles are important.

Speaker 2 These guys, everything about the core principles doesn't exist with them anymore. Here's the thing that I struggle with, though.
Look, I get it going along with Trump.

Speaker 2 If you're like a nativist immigration restrictionist and your number one issue is you want to build the wall and you don't want any brown people in this country.

Speaker 2 That's rational that you're with Trump. If you're a cultural conservative, it's rational.
It's wrong but rational.

Speaker 2 Like what about your buddies like from Congress like that that were that fiscal conservatism was their thing though? The Ryans, the Gallagher's.

Speaker 2 They look at this and it's like he's at the Economic Forum. It's like my main policy is I'm bringing back Smoot Hawley.
Like how like

Speaker 2 and he's a moron and he wants to kill the Constitution and he's an isolationist. Like why are they rationalizing rationalizing him in the CNBC crowd?

Speaker 2 Can you explain that to me at all? So I can speak from former colleagues' perspective. You have to rationalize your support of him or you are not able to look in the mirror.

Speaker 2 I mean really it's like you know you think about it and I'm not making this comparison specifically but it's always asked how is it that a well-advanced society like Germany ended up producing Nazis and killing six million of their citizens.

Speaker 2 Well, it didn't happen overnight.

Speaker 2 What happens is there's a little bit of your soul that you sell out each time you, you know, Kevin McCarthy says to do this or Donald Trump makes a tweet saying that, you know, legitimate Americans should be sent back to their country of origin.

Speaker 2 And you make a little bit of a compromise every time. And eventually, you get to a point where you have to psychologically convince yourself that what you believe is right.

Speaker 2 And by the way, humans, we can convince ourselves if we're dedicated enough to do it of anything.

Speaker 2 And so they have to... Sometimes you have to admit that you fucked up.
Yeah, it it is because you have to now look in the mirror and own the badness that exists. You have to own your part in that.

Speaker 2 And look, sunken cost fallacy. Why didn't we leave after we lost 10,000 men in Vietnam? Because we already lost 10,000 men.
We can't leave now. Why turn against Donald Trump?

Speaker 2 Because I've already sold so much of my soul that what good would it do to turn against him now? And identity, by the way, we all struggle with this in our lives.

Speaker 2 What you do for a living is a big part of how we see ourselves. It shouldn't be, but that's human nature.

Speaker 2 When you're a congressman, congressman, short of the White House, any room you walk into, you are the most powerful person there, probably. And you're the one that gets everybody's attention.

Speaker 2 That can be addictive, by the way, and they can't let that go. Well, I don't think you're going to be invited to Paul Ryan's Christmas party this year after that answer.

Speaker 2 All right. Speaking of conservatism and, you know, sort of history and the way that people have changed their views, I'm curious, Winston Churchill, hero or villain? Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2 I was listening to your podcast today from yesterday, or maybe that was today's podcast. I mean, look, and actually

Speaker 2 the same question over and over again.

Speaker 2 It's a penetrating question. I want to hear what all of you guys think about this.
And by the way, it's tough. People are re-looking at this all the time now.
They're reconsidering it.

Speaker 2 And by the way, you inspired me. I downloaded the book Bloodlands, and I started listening to it on the drive here because of that podcast.

Speaker 2 And look, it's, I mean, obviously, Winston Churchill is a massive hero. I mean, think about this.
This is a guy that for, and I can relate just to Smidge. I'm not comparing myself to Churchill, okay?

Speaker 2 Let's be clear.

Speaker 2 I'm the only one drinking on it.

Speaker 2 Winston Churchill stood alone for a long time on the threat of Adolf Hitler. He was called a warmonger.
I got called a warmonger when I called for bombing ISIS.

Speaker 2 Before they were named ISIS, we saw a resurgent al-Qaeda. He gets called this, and he sticks with his truth that he knows, which is Adolf Hitler is obviously the threat he ended up becoming.

Speaker 2 And then he leads his country that is getting devastated in this war, getting bombed every night, devastated. He leads them to victory against all odds.
Some would call it providence that they won.

Speaker 2 And then he gets voted out of office. Like, because the English were like, yep, thank you, but now we need somebody that's not so good at war.

Speaker 2 This guy was a massive, yeah, we're not going back. Massive, massive hero.
And for anybody, and by the way, I'm not even surprised, this is the sad part.

Speaker 2 I'm not surprised that there's an increasingly public effort now to try to say that Adolf Hitler wasn't that bad. It doesn't surprise me to see that on the right.

Speaker 2 It has surprised you a little bit, though, that it's for people that missed the inside joke there that haven't listened to my podcast already today, shame on you.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 play it. Let's listen together.

Speaker 2 Tucker Carlson

Speaker 2 platformed this revisionist historian man who says that it was Churchill's fault that Hitler killed all the Jews, essentially, because he was so bellicose. And the thing is,

Speaker 2 it's one thing to be like, okay, there's some weirdos having this podcast over here that are doing this. And it's free speech, it's free country.
Everybody can have their wrong opinions. But

Speaker 2 Tucker Carlson was one of the key reasons that J.D. Vance is the VP pick.

Speaker 2 It was Tucker Carlson and Trump's kids and Elon and Peter Thiel that basically are calling Trump and being like, do not pick one of these boring neocons. You have to pick somebody like J.D.

Speaker 2 Vance who's more based

Speaker 2 and has a different foreign policy view, or else that they'll coup you or whatever.

Speaker 2 Tucker Carlson literally called Trump and was like, the deep state will kill you if you pick Marco Rubio because they like Marco Rubio. They had that, that was a real conversation they had.

Speaker 2 So it's Tucker that like gets the VP picked. The VP

Speaker 2 has a history of platforming the same neo-Nazi, J.D. Vance.
And Trump obviously shares these views to some extent. Like that is the insane part, right?

Speaker 2 Like it's not like, oh, it's like some TPUSA college guys or like whatever feeling their oats and, you know, going full Hitler.

Speaker 2 It's like, no, the revisionist Nazi ideology is literally sitting inside the house. Yeah.
And look at, like, misinformation.

Speaker 2 I mean, January 6th wouldn't have happened without people like Tucker Carlson. Right.

Speaker 2 And without what happens on that kind of severely on right, online right, which is, you know, I had always mentioned I predicted violence.

Speaker 2 I predicted it on January 1st to Kevin McCarthy, and he dismissed that prediction. But I knew knew it not because

Speaker 2 I didn't predict it because I'm like clairvoyant. I predicted it because I looked online, right? And I saw what was there.
So this has a real impact.

Speaker 2 Mike Lee, has anybody here ever heard of NAFO, N-A-F-O? It's like a few of you.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 It's kind of this online joke, but it's a real, there's a bunch of us that are part of this group, NAFO, and we push back against Russian disinformation. Some crazy guy tweeted something about how

Speaker 2 I lead NAFO, which I did. Not really, not just, I have to interrupt, not just some crazy guy.
Kim.com

Speaker 2 was like essential to the original Russia leaks. Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 He was the one that was part, like the hackers, the Russians that hacked Hillary, like sent that shit through Kim.com. That's right.
Yep.

Speaker 2 And so he had tweeted that I basically led the CIA op, you know, of NAFO. And I, of course, ridiculed that.

Speaker 2 But in the process, Mike Lee, you know, who used to be, I never agreed with a lot of him, but used to be like a thoughtful constitutional scholar, basically tweeted that saying how the CIA shouldn't be paying people for misinformation online.

Speaker 2 The point is, the idea that I lead a CIA op online called NAFO, it's a bunch of dogs, is insane.

Speaker 2 If I did, that would be kind of cool. What'd you say?

Speaker 2 I said it's very cool.

Speaker 2 It would be cool, actually.

Speaker 2 I would love to take credit. I couldn't tell you if I did, but you know.

Speaker 2 But you see how quickly, within three hours, a U.S. senator is tweeting that.
And so people sit there and see that and go, well.

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Speaker 2 Well, this takes us to our next topic.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 we have an indictment from the Department of Justice out yesterday about a Russian disinformation campaign.

Speaker 2 It was people that were associated with RTE Russia Today who used money to pay allegedly, allegedly, this intermediary influencer woman, Lauren Chen,

Speaker 2 to go recruit MAGA influencers to push Russia disinformation. They had a huge money.
They paid a ton of money to big name MAGA people. Well, big name if you're in that world.

Speaker 2 You guys, I hope you haven't heard of them, but Tim Poole and Benny Johnson and Laura Southern. And like, it is working.

Speaker 2 It is, the money that is coming from Russia is real,

Speaker 2 and it is influencing the way that a lot of people on the right are thinking. Like, that's like a big conspiracy to say that on the right, but like, it's true.
It's true.

Speaker 2 And by the way, it is, I mean, agnostically, I'll say Russia is brilliant in how they're doing it. They spent $10 million, according to this indictment.

Speaker 2 $10 million, which is the cost of like 10 ATACOM's missiles in Ukraine, to be able to destabilize our system here. That is the cheapest, most effective weapon they can use.

Speaker 2 What I thought was interesting, and I think I'm right in saying this, is I expected Tim Poole and some of those to push back and say this is a deep state conspiracy. It's not real.

Speaker 2 They kind of have more pushed back against the fact that they, you know, were knowingly Russian agents. No, they say they're the victims.
Yeah, that's a couple of them treating me today.

Speaker 2 I'm the victim. I'm like, that's the best.
It's the best crime of all time.

Speaker 2 I wish I was victimized like that. These guys were taking in seven mil.
Yeah. Or seriously, seven figures, rather.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was like, victimize me, baby.

Speaker 2 I'm ready, bro. That's later tonight at the glitter bar.

Speaker 2 No, but the,

Speaker 2 hey, he said it.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 I blat them. He can make gay jokes.
You can't make gay jokes. He can make gay jokes.

Speaker 2 We got way back. But like, look,

Speaker 2 the expenditure, I mean, it's obvious what's happening. And the great question, I think it was David from today that actually had said, well, let's see what they do tomorrow.

Speaker 2 Now that they know that they are Russian agents, they can pretend they were unwitting. Now that they know,

Speaker 2 what are they going to do? And the answer is they're going to continue to say the stuff they've been saying. I've been taking a full circle on Mike Lee.

Speaker 2 So, Mike Lee, the center for Utah, that you were mentioning earlier that accused you of being a CIA plant,

Speaker 2 has an official senator Twitter account, Senator Mike Lee. But then he has another account called Based Mike Lee.
That's so cool. That is him, and that he pretended like was not him for a long time.

Speaker 2 Then he was outed by a friend of the pod, Brian Schott, as like the person that it's like, no, literally, the actual senator is tweeting from Based Mike Lee's account.

Speaker 2 But if you go back into the archive, he goes, the person that convinced me to start based Mike Lee was Benny Johnson. Benny Johnson was one of the people that was taking money from the Russians.

Speaker 2 So like it might have been unwitting, right?

Speaker 2 But it was unwittingly successful that it got all the way up to the fact that a sitting US senator was implicated in this and is pushing out anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia propaganda, like

Speaker 2 at minimum tangentially as a result of Russian money. Like, that is insane how deep they got into it.

Speaker 2 And the interesting thing is, like, first off, you know, like after the election, right, and you know, Trump started saying the election was stolen.

Speaker 2 It's not like everybody on the GOP all of a sudden believed the election was stolen.

Speaker 2 What actually sealed the deal was not just Donald Trump saying it, but then everybody that's in Congress or the Senate or a talking head also saying the election was stolen because you need two people to confirm a fact.

Speaker 2 And so in people's minds, that confirms a fact.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, I mean, like, you know, when you're putting out this kind of misinformation and you're a constituent of Mike Lee and you see him tweeting whatever he's tweeting today, you're going to believe it because, I mean, he's a U.S.

Speaker 2 senator.

Speaker 2 The disadvantage America has, and this is one I could spend an hour talking about and I won't, but the disadvantage America has in the information war is Russia, obviously at the behest of, you know, Putin, can do this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 When we try to fight back, which we can do some kind of information stuff, but if

Speaker 2 Rand Paul finds out that we have a disinformation campaign in Russia, for instance, he will run to Twitter and expose that and say, this is what the US is doing. They're blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 So we are hamstrung in how we can respond. And we're basically sitting here taking shots, but not able to fire back.
So you're saying we should be doing more secret propaganda shit?

Speaker 2 I totally think we should, yes. Are you sure we're not doing secret propaganda shit that you don't know about? I'm fairly sure.

Speaker 2 There's some, but not like this level. You got any sources?

Speaker 2 You want to share? Uh-oh. People are getting nervous out there.

Speaker 2 I want to talk about Arlington for a second. In the crowd tonight, for those of you that read the Bulwarks website, our friend Will Selber occasionally writes for our site, Afghanistan Veteran.

Speaker 2 He's here tonight. Hey, Will, everybody say hi to Will.

Speaker 2 Will wrote beautifully about section 60 and why it's important to post 9-11 vets.

Speaker 2 Trump today at that New York Economic Club speech that I was referencing also for some reason was talking about his trip to to Arlington.

Speaker 2 You know, he kind of sort of loses the thread sometimes, so it's headed down. This is not exactly an economic club topic.
But he said that

Speaker 2 he was there because the Gold Star families were celebrating the soldiers there. Like,

Speaker 2 what the fuck is wrong with this person? I mean, look,

Speaker 2 it's very, very simple.

Speaker 2 When you're a... I don't even know if narcissist is him.
Like, if there's anything worse than narcissist, like, the devil,

Speaker 2 Megalomaniac, like when you're that deep of a narcissist. Saying it's the devil in disguise.
Yeah, maybe, maybe. No, but when you're that deep of a narcissist, you are incapable.

Speaker 2 You're literally incapable, physically, fundamentally, mentally incapable of understanding sacrifice. And so, look, if you take away, you know, the sacrifice of that, you can see then.

Speaker 2 How he would say, suckers and losers, they didn't get anything out of that, right?

Speaker 2 And it's fine if you want to to be a Hollywood star and be a narcissist, but when you're president of the United States and you go there, and the idea of giving a thumbs up and smiling, look, there is no world,

Speaker 2 and I'm not like for everybody in here would feel this way.

Speaker 2 There is no world in which you would walk through Arlington Cemetery, Section 60, which is the very recent, you know, the ones that have died in the war on terror.

Speaker 2 My friend Michael Wood is here, by the way, who ran for Congress. Fantastic guy.
Yeah, Michael Wood.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he's a he's a marine and and I he probably has friends buried there but the idea that you could walk through that and even think to smile and give the thumbs up or to say to you know your press guy like make sure you get a good shot of this yeah and and here's the thing if you go on an official visit as like a sitting congressman or whatever that's great what you don't do is go there to politicize it because obviously we know why that's wrong but let's think of the precedent it sets where now every candidate for congress every candidate for senate every every candidate for city council will go to Arlington as a prop to get their picture taken to prove they're more, you know, with the troops and pro-American.

Speaker 2 It's disgusting.

Speaker 2 All right, putting Arlington aside, though.

Speaker 2 Please clap, as they say.

Speaker 2 That's fine.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you ever heard that phrase before, please clap.

Speaker 2 So it's kind of a way that you encourage people to clap. Do you know, by the way, we got to be good friends on the Jeb campaign.
And I don't know.

Speaker 2 Somebody, one man had the balls to say, you know what? I'm for Jeb Bush because he's going to be a good president. And that was Adam Kinzinger.
So we got to hang out a lot together on the road.

Speaker 2 It's me, Adam, and Lindsey Graham. It was a weird trio.

Speaker 2 We've kind of gone our separate ways, but one of us. One of us has.

Speaker 2 Just one more thing on the only two thing, though. You said, you both, you and JBL said that you would never think to...
do a thumbs up and a smile in front of a grave.

Speaker 2 Is there not any grave that you would ever do a thumbs up? I'm sorry, don't answer that. Don't answer that.
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Speaker 2 I had a serious topic to get to, but we're laughing, so we're going to do fun stuff first. You were hanging out at the DNC.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Did you make any pals? Thank you. Are you there? Like, are you popular there? I mean, were you like you and Corey Booker throwing back shots? Or do you have any kind of backstage anecdotes?

Speaker 2 Yeah, look, it was a really cool experience because,

Speaker 2 you know, when I wrote my speech, it was, you know, obviously my goal was not necessarily speaking to the people there. It was speaking to the camera, to the Republicans that feel like we feel.

Speaker 2 And there's more of them out there than it seems, even if they end up voting for Trump, some of them.

Speaker 2 But the one thing I didn't want to do is shy away from being a Republican, because that was the point.

Speaker 2 And so, Sophia and I, my wife, you know, we were talking some, and she's like, just expect when you, in the opening, when you're kind of like, hey, I'm a Republican, you might get booed.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, yeah, it's okay. I expect it.
You know, it's a convention. It's everybody's.

Speaker 2 But when I got there and I felt the energy in that place and I saw how my other Republican friends were welcomed on stage, I'm like, oh, there's not going to be booing. Like, they did boo J.D.

Speaker 2 Vance, which was nice in my speech. And

Speaker 2 did anybody throw any panties at you or anything? Nope, not that I saw, but you know, not at all.

Speaker 2 You watch out, ladies.

Speaker 2 I was not a request,

Speaker 2 Springfield, ladies.

Speaker 2 But it was an amazing, amazing feeling. And, you know, I thought the RNC RNC did a decent job of their convention.
The DNC blew their convention out of the water. And the thing,

Speaker 2 the thing that I loved about it, you know, look, yes, I was treated very well. You kind of feel like a rock star there because everybody's coming up.
And it was great. And I loved that.

Speaker 2 What I loved about the convention is... The Republicans and Donald Trump specifically have vacated a lot of real estate in the middle of America.

Speaker 2 They've vacated national defense, you know, those kinds of easy.

Speaker 2 And the Democrats went in and grabbed it, right? USA chance, patriotism. Like, this is all stuff.
And I said this at the beginning of my speech. The Democrats are just as patriotic as we are.

Speaker 2 They're just as concerned about the future of this country as we are. And I meant that.

Speaker 2 There were no tri-cornered hat guys in the hallway, though. That was amazing.
No pocket constitutions.

Speaker 2 No pocket constitutions. There were no wackos, and that was nice.
That was nice. So nobody, you didn't get shots with any Democrats.

Speaker 2 No, because we were kind of in and out. But I will say really quickly, in 2015,

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 Main Street group, Republican Main Street, which is like the moderate Republicans. It's not moderate anymore, but it'd be moderate in comparison.

Speaker 2 We were having a getaway in Florida, and we were being protested by like 20 people in 1776 garb calling us rhinos. And I'm like, what kind of weirdos?

Speaker 2 Travel to Florida to protest in revolutionary war clothing.

Speaker 2 That's going to be the National Security Council of Trump wins. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 It is. Those 20 guys are doing Project 2025.
Sir, we need more muskets in this place. All right, everybody, we got to stop up.
We got to do serious. We got to do one second about the Georgia shooting.

Speaker 2 I like talking to you about this for a reason because you, unlike me, you are scared to hold a weapon.

Speaker 2 You're a gun person and care about it and care about the Second Amendment. And we have this shooting yesterday.
And since this happened, you know, more has come out.

Speaker 2 And it's like this kid, this young man that committed this horrible murder is 14. His mother had drug problems.
His father had guns in the house. The FBI got warned about him.

Speaker 2 The FBI showed up to the house. They talked to the father a year ago.
And the father was like, oh, don't worry about this. He won't get guns.

Speaker 2 He had lots of calls for help, according to other people in the family.

Speaker 2 And it's like, fucking Republicans, like our whole life growing up, were like, we got to stop the deadbeat dads and like the welfare moms.

Speaker 2 Like there was a lot of like coded racial shit there, and there was a lot of bullshit there. But, like, underneath it, like, the responsibility culture was there, right?

Speaker 2 And you don't hear that from these guys now. That's like this father who had guns in the house, who had a troubled kid, who was warned by the fucking FBI, did nothing,

Speaker 2 like, that man should face legal problems. Yeah.
Jeopardy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I agree.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 2 So, anyway,

Speaker 2 and David Frums on Podcast Today talking about Canadian gun laws. So are we statists? That's my question for you.
You're a gun man. How do we balance this?

Speaker 2 How do we balance freedom with like having some fucking responsibility? I am much more moderate on guns than I started when I was in Congress, you know, because when I just because of what I've seen.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, yes, there were school shootings in 2010, but not like we're seeing now.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, it's and I got a kid now, and I hate to say that that makes a difference in policy, but it does, because you feel things differently as well.

Speaker 2 But like, yeah, I am a gun guy, and I fully believe that you should have a right as a law-abiding citizen to conceal carry, for instance.

Speaker 2 I don't, if, you know, if you're certified, and I do think you should have to have a license for that. I don't understand open carry, really.
I don't understand why,

Speaker 2 but okay, Texas, you guys like to show your guns off sometimes. It's cool.

Speaker 2 You know, but I usually conceal carry where I go because of security threats.

Speaker 2 What I don't understand is why, you know, one of the things I was trying to push in Congress, I was the first congressman, Republican or Democrat, to call for banning bump stocks, right?

Speaker 2 That was a 90% issue.

Speaker 2 And to show you how crazy it is, Donald Trump banned them. The NRA gave Donald Trump an A for his score.
I got a D plus because of that, right? And I hate the NRA, just so you guys know.

Speaker 2 And so let's find the areas that I think we should all be able to agree on. Red flag logs should happen.
Because people say, well, you're denying somebody's constitutional right before a trial.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 2 true we also do that with restraining orders by the way you know there is there's stuff in the law where sometimes to protect people you have to temporarily deny a constitutional right the other thing at least when it comes to to assault rifles for instance I think we should have to have another layer of licensing to get those further background checks but can't we all agree that you should have to be 21 there I mean

Speaker 2 You have to be in this country you have to be 21 to buy a handgun you I don't know the rules in Texas Maybe it's 18. You only have to be 18 to buy a long gun, which includes an AR, by the way.

Speaker 2 And by the way, just so you guys know, and you guys know guns, if it was a pistol against an AR, you'd lose 99 out of 100 times because of how high power they are.

Speaker 2 The pistol, 99 out of 100 times. And so, look, there are common sense things we can do.
You have to be 21 to buy cigarettes. Nobody went crazy when we raised the cigarette age.

Speaker 2 Let's raise the gun age at least, right?

Speaker 2 Because a lot of these shootings in this case, and I know I kind of went off topic, but in this case, a parent should be held accountable.

Speaker 2 But in most of these school shootings, it's somebody that's either in school or just recently out of school that if you ban the purchase of those guns, that would be out of that group's hands that are most likely to commit a school shooting.

Speaker 2 So I'm not a communist. We can go after the data.
I agree with it.

Speaker 2 And look, and David today actually really pulled at my heartstrings with the talk about, you know, look, Canada, every other country in the world, you have, you know, mad kids.

Speaker 2 You have violent video games. You have violent movies.
You have guns in Canada.

Speaker 2 You have guns in Canada. Yep.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no. That was tough with him.
Listening to him talk about it. So you're in Texas.

Speaker 2 You worried now that you can't run my secret plan for you to run as a Democrat's ruined now that you just came out for gun reform?

Speaker 2 Nope. No.

Speaker 2 What do we think? Does everybody think Adam's run as a Democrat in Texas?

Speaker 2 He's got some bad votes.

Speaker 2 Do you want me to start start going through his votes? He's got some votes that are going to get you booing. Do we want him to do a boo? Okay, no, we're not.
We'll do that another time.

Speaker 2 You've got some votes, though. But I don't know.
What is your message to the Texas Democrats? I do think it's like... No, look.

Speaker 2 You got Colin up this year. And what can they? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm going to see Colin on Saturday in Austin. Obviously, we like him better than Ted Cruz.
We like Ted Cruz, right?

Speaker 2 What's your advice to Colin and to other Texas Democrats? Well, I'm friends with Colin. I think he's great.
And I've been friends with him

Speaker 2 since we served in Congress together.

Speaker 2 Look, this is what Texas Democrats, and I think Democrats in general do right, is they're giving him the,

Speaker 2 I guess, the leverage to be able to be who he is. He's kind of a moderate Democrat, right?

Speaker 2 If you want to win Texas, this was always my advice to people in Illinois, is like, you can't have the most conservative candidate run statewide in Illinois and win. You need a moderate.

Speaker 2 Like every one of our statewide office holders in Illinois that were Republicans were pro-choice, for instance. And it's like you've got to give flexibility for that.

Speaker 2 The Democrats do a good job of that. The Democrats do a good job of putting down their crazy element and actually lifting up the candidates that reflect the state.
Texas is not a far-left state.

Speaker 2 If you want a Democrat to win, somebody like Colin Allred is the one to do it. By the way, recently polls showed him only about 2% down.
It's going to be tough, but it's doable.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't,

Speaker 2 so just being devil's advocate, there's the other side of that that, like, you know, Beto

Speaker 2 just drew such enthusiasm in the state, right? And there's just kind of Beto mania.

Speaker 2 I think my husband even had a Beto shirt, and we lived in Oakland, you know, so Beto is everywhere. I don't think there are any calling all red shirts walking around Oakland.

Speaker 2 I don't live there anymore, but I think I can say that pretty safely. How do you kind of balance that, right?

Speaker 2 Because you do need both the excitement of younger voters and new voters versus having somebody that's more

Speaker 2 in the center. Well, the first thing is if you run against Ted Cruz, they're going to be pretty excited.
So that's good.

Speaker 2 Look, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's really just a matter of do you want to win or do you want to lose? And yes, somebody that's hardcore, either to the left or to the right, gins up their base.

Speaker 2 The Republicans in North Carolina are really excited about Robinson, okay?

Speaker 2 He's like down by 15 points.

Speaker 2 This wasn't on my agenda, but let's do a quick aside.

Speaker 2 I was just getting the red light, but why not?

Speaker 2 What do you think about going to a porn store five nights a week with a pizza?

Speaker 2 He brings the pizza into the porn store, goes into the back room, and he's there every night.

Speaker 2 Sounds like a Republican candidate for governor, if I've ever heard one.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's look, it's just the hypocrisy of

Speaker 2 you. I don't know.
I don't know. You ever been in a back room in a porn store? Never one time?

Speaker 2 Are you sure?

Speaker 2 Even before the internet, even before Pornhub,

Speaker 2 we can't watch Pornhub in Texas right now. Is that true?

Speaker 2 Can we still not watch Pornhub? Anyway.

Speaker 2 This is enough to bring my libertarian side out.

Speaker 2 I'm not a big Pornhub man myself. I got a lot of vices.
Okay, none of your business. But

Speaker 2 the people, if people want to go on Pornhub, they should be able to. But five nights a week away from your family does feel like a lot.
Yeah, I mean, well,

Speaker 2 this is the guy that, like, has stood at church pulpits and talked about, like, you know, basically the church should take over the state. I mean, just it's insanity.

Speaker 2 And the problem is this is what, in this case, it's probably good because he's going to lose. It's what Republicans put up.

Speaker 2 And so to get to your original question, which was much better than where we went.

Speaker 2 You know, look, I think. Hi, Sophia.

Speaker 2 I think it's a matter of, it's just a matter of as Democrats recognizing if you want to win statewide, if you have a very liberal district like in Dallas, you can put whoever you want in there statewide, you've got to put a moderate Democrat up there.

Speaker 2 They don't have to become conservative. They don't have to try to pretend to be Republicans.
But obviously, you want as a party to have a candidate that reflects

Speaker 2 enough number of people in the state that you can actually win an election. Because you can have so much excitement and raise so much money.
And if you lose, that achieves nothing. All right.

Speaker 2 I agree with that. We're going to close with this.
You received 7,500 retweets for something that you sent the other day, which had me very jealous.

Speaker 2 And I would like to do a dramatic reading, unless you want to read your own tweet. No, please.

Speaker 2 I can't wait to flush Trump down America's toilet.

Speaker 2 For my kid to learn in history class how America rose up to fight back against him, for his name to be alongside Benedict Arnold and Judas, and for everyone who supports him to pretend they never did, and for the grifters to go bankrupt like everything Trump touches we deserve better we'll rise up and achieve that we rock yeah I believe that I believe it

Speaker 2 yeah I think he can win a Democratic primary we're not gonna talk about his votes but I think that he could I think that the people like that Adam Kinzer do you have anything you want to add to that any final words

Speaker 2 I'll say this first off it's awesome being here thank you guys you guys are great and um

Speaker 2 the bulwark the bulwark community I mean I travel a lot and talk to a lot of people people.

Speaker 2 I mean, honestly, more than anything I hear, I've heard you on the Bulwark, or I listened to you on the Bulwark. So to all the leadership of the Bulwark, it's awesome.
Thank you for being great fans.

Speaker 2 And look, I really, truly believe, I would not be doing this if I didn't. I believe that, you know, we're going to defeat Trump.

Speaker 2 But even if we don't, and God forbid, but regardless, Trumpism will be gone, and there will be people that will be ashamed.

Speaker 2 They'll be scrubbing their Twitter timeline because they don't want anybody to remember that they ever supported that SOB in this country ever again.

Speaker 2 That's my friend Adam Kinsey here. We're going to be back with a couple other people you know.
Thanks, guys.

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Speaker 2 The Rio Grande is in my veins. It's heaven there.

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Speaker 2 I'm a child of the Alamo and the yellow rose.

Speaker 2 So when I go,

Speaker 2 take me to Texas.

Speaker 2 Take me to Texas.

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